Sunday, January 27, 2013

Back to bouncy

Well.

Lately, the news has been spouting off about "the flu this", and "the flu that", making sure everyone and their mother is shaking in their boots, or standing in ridiculous lines to get a highly coveted flu shot. "The worst flu season in years!!" warned channel 5. The "deadly flu," said channel 4. I kinda passed off this fear based mumbo jumbo, and wondered if some drug company was in trouble and payed the local media to rattle enough peoples nerves to stock up on their products. My bad. My real bad.

It's flu season folks, and I can confirm, it is that bad.

Last Sunday morning, Grace woke up with a stomach ache. Okay, I said, passing it off as just maybe she was hungry, or maybe she wanted a reason to laze around in bed a bit longer. It was after 10am (which is not abnormal for her on a weekend), so, I let her stay in bed. And she stayed, and stayed, and there she stayed for almost literally a week straight. What started as a upset tummy, quickly blossomed into a fever, and aches, and then by Monday morning, fever spikes of 104+. This mama was scared, and we began a cycle of cold washcloths, then tepid baths, and children's Advil to keep the fever controlled a bit, for days. Around mid week, she awoke at 1am as her fever was breaking, and scared this mama clear into next week. She was talking, but not making sense. She didn't know who I was, or Jeremy, and was talking to her alarm clock like it was a person. She wanted people to "get off the ceiling, because she was afraid they would fall." Then she was totally terrified of us. She cried as Jeremy tried to take her temperature as she would blink, and then scream as if we were trying to hurt her. I immediately called the doctor on call, which took a while since you had to go through a nurse on call first. When he finally called back, he asked me to see if she could dip her chin to her chest. We asked her and she tried, but puked instead. Oh, this mama was scared. I knew he was checking her for possible suspected meningitis, and I knew if he suspected it, it would mean a hospital visit and a spinal tap. No spinal taps, was all I could pray for. It brought back many unpleasant memories as I tried to shove the thought to the back of my brain. I had packed a hospital bag just in case, the night before, and eyed it, shoving a couple more things into it as I talked to the doctor. I was sure there might be a middle of the night trip to the nearest ER. I've never been so glad to unpack a bag in my life. As we talked, she calmed down, and became more lucid, and finally recognized us as her parents, and the temperature probe, not as an instrument of torture. The doc stayed on the phone with me a bit, until we felt she was over her "flu fever night terror," he called it, and I got off the phone, and she puked again. It was to be a very long night.

By the next morning her fever hung around 100-102, a marked improvement over the last couple of days, and slowly it went away, but in came the terrible junky cough, runny nose, and weakness. Then, on Thursday, my other (bigger) baby came home coughing, and by midnight, Jeremy had a fever of 103. And, there he has stayed, and his cycle started, and is still going. Yech, folks. Not a fun one.

Grace is doing much better except for her junky cough. She is back to being bouncy and Tigger tailed, snarky, sweet, and sneaky, just how I like it. It's good to have my baby back. So good. Now I just need my other Tigger back to bouncy...

Before we became the "House of sickness," I was getting into birthday mode, as Grace also has a January birthday coming up this week, and I wanted to start decorating. Since her sewing machine has found a semi permanent place at the dining room table, it is just begging to be used, so I made some Birthday Bunting to decorate our windows with.

It goes a little something like this:

Cut out felt triangles of various colors. I cut mine 3 1/4 inches on the top, and 4 1/2 inches on the long side, and ended up using 21 triangles per 3 yard strand. I made two strands. Sorry for the word problem. Your math for the day. : )

You will need two packs of double fold bias tape quilting binding, each, 3 yards in length. I wanted a powder blue color, but all they had in was red, so I bought red. This is what it looks like:

Then, I set out my felt triangles in the rainbow I wanted them to be in, so I wouldn't have to sift through the colors to find my next little flag as I was assembling. Having it all laid out, helped with the flow.

I then opened up one pack of bias tape, and ironed out the folds. Starting about three inches from the end, I tucked a felt triangle between the folds. Make sure your flags are tucked all the way into the binding fold though, so when you sew, the seam will grab both the binding and the flag. To be sure it held as I sewed, I got out my glue gun and put a small dab of glue on the back of the felt to secure it, so it wouldn't move around. The glue is purely optional. I think though, you may have just as much luck not using the sewing machine at all, and simply hot gluing the felt triangles into the bias tape. That may work. Let me know. ; )

Anyways, I lined up about six or so little flags tucked into my bias tape, spacing them two inches apart from each other, and started to sew a (sort of) straight line. "Straight," is pushing it. I really can't sew worth a darn.

I finished one 3 yarder, and then did the second one, and viola! I have two colorful strands of Birthday Bunting to use year after year.

Happy bunting to you, and after you get done reading this post, go wash your hands. Or, bath in Purell. Just in case.